5 benefits of using online classroom software

Online tutoring has seen a surge in popularity over the past few years. It’s a trend that was born of necessity over the pandemic — but one that, it seems, is here to stay. The convenience and flexibility of the online format allows our brilliant volunteers to reach many more students than they ever could in-person, and Tutorfair Foundation have delivered thousands of online lessons using ‘virtual classroom’ software.

But the benefits of online teaching aren’t limited to logistics. Our classroom software, Lessonspace, is packed with handy features designed to enhance your teaching experience…

Downloading your lessons

Did you know that you can download your ‘whiteboard’ space after you’ve used it? Just right-click the tab you want to save, and select ‘download as image’. This super-handy function allows you to neatly store your lesson notes for future reference - complete with all the notes and diagrams you’ve used throughout the lesson. 

Students can keep a record of all their lessons to help with their future revisions - and tutors can likewise store past lesson notes to re-use or refer to. And–unlike physical notes–they can’t get lost, dog-eared, or covered in coffee!

Using multiple tabs

Lessonspace allows you to open as many ‘tabs’ as you want, with each tab containing a separate whiteboard where you can paste images, PDFs, or texts. And even better–these tabs stay open forever, until you close or download them. 

If you use a fresh tab each lesson, this makes it really easy to flick between notes from past lessons - for example, hopping back over to some lesson notes from a few weeks ago to refer to past material or refresh the student’s mind. 

Uploading PDFs

Lessonspace has a useful ‘upload PDF’ feature, which allows you to upload multi-page PDFs directly into the whiteboard. This is brilliant for past papers and lesson materials alike, as you can write and draw on top of these uploaded PDFs to your heart’s content – trying and erasing solutions, adding diagrams, and typing answers directly into the boxes provided.

Annotating material

Particularly handy for the humanities is the ability to annotate texts directly. Try underlining words or phrases – a powerful metaphor, or the date of a historical source, for example – in different colours, and annotating as you would by hand. The ability to flip between whiteboard-style tabs for annotations and word-processing tabs for writing makes Lessonspace a great platform for teaching text-based subjects.

Annotating texts on Lessonspace

Sharing images, links and documents

Teaching online means you have Google at your fingertips. Need to illustrate a tricky concept, or show your student a particularly mathematical diagram? Just copy and paste your source directly into the whiteboard - or share links and even whole documents directly through the Lessonspace chat.

If you’d like to volunteer with the Tutorfair Foundation, we’d love to hear from you! Please do get in touch or sign up below.